His denunciations of the judges described them as corrupt and venal, ready to wink at the scandalous abuses and the violations of the Spanish laws, which were daily perpetrated under their very eyes, consenting the while to fill their own pockets with a share of the illicit profits.
Describing the horrors and ravages of the slave-trade, [pg 298] he declared that the provinces of Guatemala and Nicaragua had been depopulated, while in the provinces of Jalisco, Yucatan, and Panuco, similar outrages had been perpetrated, adding that the Germans in Venezuela were even more adroit than the Spaniards in the nefarious art of raiding Indian villages to carry off the inhabitants into slavery. “Your Majesty will see that I do not exaggerate when I affirm that more than four million men have been reduced to slavery, all of which has been accomplished in defiance of your Majesty's royal instructions.”
Throughout this treatise, Las Casas supports his contentions on citations from Scripture, and in the second article, dealing with the obligations of the King towards his Indian subjects, he defines in very plain language the sanctions on which the royal claims to obedience rest: “The law of God imposes on the king the obligation to administer his kingdoms in such wise that small and great, poor and rich, the weak and the powerful, shall all be treated with equal justice”;—such is his Statement of the King's duty and he supports it with quotations from Deuteronomy, Leviticus, the prophet Isaias, and St. Jerome, concluding with these words: “In fact, history furnishes examples of God chastising the nations and kingdoms which have refused justice to the poor and the orphan. Who shall venture to say that such may not be the fate of Spain, if the King denies the poor Indians their just dues and fails to give them the liberty, to which they have an incontestable right?”
Nor does he limit the King's responsibility to his personal acts in cases which may come directly to his knowledge; he is obliged also to see that his subjects observe one another's rights and live according to the laws of civil order and public morality. The object for which society and rulers exist is to insure the common weal of all, and no sovereign can secure this, who does not base his government on the principles of virtue and justice. The Spanish king is therefore not only obliged to secure the liberty of the Indians because justice exacts this of him, but also because he is bound to prevent his Spanish subjects from acts of usurpation of the rights of others. Christian kings have greater duties than those which weigh upon heathen or heretical rulers, for they are bound to protect religion, favour its ministers, and spread the faith for the sanctification of the whole world. By securing liberty to the Indians, their conversion would be assured and, all causes of enmity and hatred against Spaniards being removed, the natives would eagerly welcome the missionaries and receive their teaching.
The third article of his argument, dealing with the conduct of bishops in America, rehearses their apostolic duties towards their flocks and concludes by defining it as an episcopal obligation to represent the sufferings and wrongs of their defenceless people to the King and the India Council, and to insist on Justice being done them.
It is a noteworthy fact that such writings and speeches seem to have given no offence to the Spanish monarch, at that time the most absolute [pg 300] sovereign in Christendom, and that, not only before the members of the India Council, but in the estimation of the impartial men of his times, Las Casas succeeded in disproving the charge of disputing the rights of the Spanish Crown to sovereignty in the Indies, which his enemies had maliciously sought to fasten upon him.
Charles V. had already conceded much to the venerable Bishop's unceasing and energetic representations. A royal decree had abolished slavery, reduced very considerably the number of encomiendas, and had restricted the authority of the holders of these concessions over their Indians; the labours of the natives held in encomienda had been greatly lightened and their rights had been placed on a sure basis, strict instructions having been given to the civil authorities to correct abuses of power and to protect the weak. Wise laws and humane instructions had, however, at no time been wanting but the benevolent intentions of the Emperor were never adequately fulfilled by the Spanish colonial officials. Nevertheless, much had been accomplished and the condition of the Indians—those of them who survived—was very different in 1550, from that which prevailed when Las Casas took up their cause in 1510. Spaniards and Indians were equal before the common law of the land, the papal bull had defined, once for all, the moral status of the latter as responsible beings, and it was henceforth heresy to sustain the contrary. The supports on which those who had contended in favour of tightening the hold of the Spanish colonists on the natives had, one by one, [pg 301] been knocked from under them and the way was open for the more complete and practical application of the royal provisions for the protection of the oppressed peoples.
Prince Philip, to whom the Emperor had granted the sovereignty of Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia and who was already styled Philip II., left Spain on July 12, 1554, to celebrate his marriage with the English Queen, Mary Tudor. He took in his suite several renowned theologians, amongst whom was Carranza de Miranda, at that time his confessor and later raised to the primatial See of Toledo. The relations between Las Casas and this important ecclesiastic had been most cordial and the latter had given the weight of his approval on more than one occasion to the Bishop in his furious controversies; notably during his contest with Sepulveda and by defending his Confesionario. Carranza, in his quality of confessor, exercised a great influence over the mind of Philip II.
Philip II.